Jarvan IV
Build Guide by Ontarin

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Masteries

Offense: 9

Defense: 21

Utility: 0

Introduction

Hello everyone and welcome to my guide to jungle Jarvan IV for season 3!

Today i'm here to share with you all my thoughts on J4 for the season 3 jungle as well as an explanation behind the items , runes mastery's and more.
I've been playing Jarvan troughout Season 2 and in Season 3 as well , he might not have been the first champion i ever played but tanks , offtanks and bruisers have always been my favorite kind of champions in League of Legends.

Why Jarvan

Jarvan is a champion that can simply make sure his team is gets ahead durring the laning phase trough his outstanding ganking potential and his ability to avoid possibly wards, top that off with the added CC that he brings and the synergy with pretty much any of his teams AoE spells makes him a very competent opponent and can become quite a menance really quickly.

How i personally play Jarvan

I personally enjoy playing Jarvan as the teams initiator while he can fit the roll of offtank , bruiser or even assassin i personally believe he is at his best in the front line making any ad or ap carry regret they started a teamfight without their flash up

Pro's and Cons

Pros / Cons

- Pretty slow clearing Not a great duelist- Not a great duelist- Relies on successful ganks to be competent in mid game- EXTREMELY MANLY

Mastery's

Offense Tree
Fury or Sorcery?

CDR is such an important stat on any jungler in this current patch , the ability to spam your cooldowns and cause dissruption against the enemy team can make teamfights swing in your favor very easely

Defensive Tree
This is pretty standard bruiser defensive mastery's some might consider Perseverance over Relentless and forget about Legendary armor all at once but i'm aiming towards getting the most out of the defensive tree to increase my uptime on targets while staying as tanky as i can.

Alternative buildsThis build is more oriantated around being able to initiate more often within a smaller time frame
All these masterty's make sure you have:

and the extra buff duration on neutral buffs is a nice little extra you pick up.

Jungle Route

Jarvan can pretty much start where he wants in the jungle , its up to you to decide wether or not you want to take a certain route over an other.
For example if you start blue and run up to do your red and the enemy jungler is a Lee Sin or a Shaco then expect him to be at your red when you're doing it, this puts you in a bad spot , you can have your buff stolen or in worst case scenario give first blood putting you behind by alot. So in this situation i would personally start red (prefferably have it done smiteless) and then run up to wolves and blue after wraiths and red so that the enemy jungler will have a harder time predicting your jungle path.

the reason i tend to ignore golems early on is due to them being abit harder to take down and they also hit harder than wolves/wraiths when you have your spirit stone/madreds then these should be no problem ofcourse.

Itemisation

Start: Machete/5 hp potsExplanation:
Pretty standard for any jungler in S3 , a great jungling tool!

First buy:Explanation:
Spirit stone atm is probably the best item to go for on any jungler that wants to fit the role of a tanky initiator with alot of support aura's but more on that in the Spirit of the Ancient Golem section.
You can also go madreds early on if you plan on doing dragon early , since you're heading for drake early you'll probably depend on those procs to help kill it quicker.

Core items: Spirit of the Ancient golem , BulwarkExplanation:
SotAG: Atm i think this item is a MUST HAVE for any jungler that wants to be a tanky initiator, for only 2k gold you can be extremely tanky very early on , i've seen junglers get this item before the 10 minute mark and just dive turrets without any issue's so early in game

in short : very cost effective , all stats are benefitial to J4 , great item to have

Bulwark: This item is pretty standard on most junglers , this is just an aura on top of your Demacian Standards aura making this item a must have unless your support somehow ends up getting really fed and rushes this , then you can replace it with another item

Mid-Late game goals Locket , Merc threads/Tabi , randuinsExplanation:
Mercs or Ninja tabi depending on who is 'big' on the enemy team , say both their solo laners are AP champions and their laning phase ended really well in their favor , then i'd probably still go Merc Threads even though the tenacity stacks with the Spirit of the Ancient Golem.

Locket of the iron solari: This item is great for J4 , like Spirit of the ancient golem this item is cost effective and J4 benefits off every stat

Randuins Omen:E-Q-R into an entire team , pop randuins and nobody is going anywhere anything soon. A very expensive yet very effective item for any champion that serves as a tanky initiator , i suggest getting this item before locket and maybe even bulwark if their team if very Attack speed reliant (irelia/jax top , kennen mid , ....)

The last item
These items depend on a few different factors which occur durring the game.
Things you should be thinking of when choosing which items to build are the following examples:

Am i ahead?
Am i behind?
Am i fed?
Are they fed?
If they're fed , who is fed? the AP or AD carry?
WHAT DOES MY TEAM NEED!

So depending on those few examples you should be able to build accordingly.

For example:
You or your team is fed, in this case , i'd build a Blade of the Ruined king or a maw of malmortius because those are the items that give the most ad while i keep my tankyness and my ability to not instantly melt.

example 2!
The enemy ad carry is fed , you and your team are being destroyed by him in teamfights now depending on how fed he is i'd choose accordingly

"well he is 6-0 which is fed but we shouldnt get blown up instantly" Sunfire cape
"this guy is 12-0 and we're just dying we have to stop him" Frozen Heart
"24-0 **** it let him kill himself" Thornmail

WHAT DOES MY TEAM NEED
The reason i emphasised this particular point is because if your top laner is a vladimir , your mid is a veigar and your bot is an ashe with a zyra then please dont go full glass cannon , your team needs a tank , you have to be able to provide what they require.
This works in both ways though, if you have a malphite top and a leona support than you could probably get away with going for a slightly more offensive aproach.

Conclusion
You Should always build according to the situation you are dealing with durring the game to get the best results possible.

Ganking Tips and Tricks

Here's just a few ways you can avoid wards/improve your ganks:

#1 Probably one of my all time favorite ways to gank top lane on the blue side , most top laners ward the river or the tri brush so using this to your advantage can surprise even the most experienced top laners.
#2 Nice way to gank mid lane if they're playing defensive
#3 Great way to gank bot lane when its pushed , avoiding all river wards (beware or possible tri brush wards and take the route from golems to be safe)
#4 About the same as the last one except now in mid lane , aggresive mid laners who stick to the side they warded be afraid.
There's also your standard ganks like trough the river and going trough lane etc... but these are just a few ways of getting into your enemy's face without them knowing it

NOTE: when using your E-Q to bypass a ward ,always make sure to tell your laner to wait for your cooldowns to come back so you can execute the gank properly!

Notes

This guide is clearly still a work in progress i will be updating it over time.
Please leave constructive feedback as it helps me improve my guide even further!

23/05/13 UPDATED FOR THIS PATCH!
I picked up the slack and started seriously looking at all the things that have changed since i wrote this , and alot has changed indeed , hope you guys enjoy this update more to come soon!

24/05/13 Starting to change the overal layout of the guide to make it more apealing to the eye rather than having walls of text.

Been working on the general Layout for the first few sections of the guide , more to come:
*Runes Section
*Mastery Section
*Video Section

// SPECIAL THANKS: Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.

using his guide to help make my guide more presentable , so thanks dude!

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